Brutal. Uncompromising. Hardcore. These are the words most commonly used to describe DayZ, Bohemia Interactive’s open-world zombie survival sim. Already downloaded over two million times via PC gaming service Steam, this is a game that makes everything difficult for the player, and where death is permanent.

There’s no hand-holding, no tutorial, and no over-arching mission. You spawn into the fictitious Eastern European state of Chernarus, site of a devastating zombie outbreak, then you survive for as long as possible – either with friends or alone. Whichever you choose, the odds are stacked mercilessly against you.

Newcomers are given short shrift, but with this guide, and some patience, you’ll be able to conquer the near-vertical learning curve and start having fun with one of the most compelling and unique multiplayer experiences on PC.

The beginning

The coast is the most populated and therefore the most dangerous part of the map – especially for new players. Get out of there fast

When you start a new life, you spawn randomly along the coast of Chernarus. All you have to survive is a flashlight and a battery. Your first port of call should be a town. There’s always one nearby; just follow the nearest road or railway. When you get there you need to prioritise food, drink, a backpack, and a melee weapon. Forget about crowbars, fire extinguishers, and other blunt weapons, as they do very little damage. Find an axe – either a red firefighter axe, or a wood-handled splitting axe. They’ll both take a zombie down with one clean swing to the head and deal significant damage to another player if you’re forced to defend yourself.

If you enter a town and all the doors are open, chances are the place has already been cleaned out by other survivors. But it’s still worth looking. If a veteran player comes through town they’ll leave a lot of items that are useless to them, but valuable to you at this early stage. If there’s nothing to be found, try the next town. If you’re lucky, the server you’re on will have recently reset, which refreshes all the loot drops on the map. With a backpack containing something to eat and drink and an axe, you’re ready to head inland.

Finding your friends

Discovering where friends have spawned will be frustrating at first, but as you become more familiar with the map it gets much easier

You can play DayZ as a lone wolf, but it’s a totally different – and in many ways better – experience with a group of friends. The problem is, there’s no in-game contacts list or ability to teleport to another player. Instead, you’re going to have to do some orienteering. First, set up a voice call with Skype, or use a program like TeamSpeak or Ventrilo, to talk to the player(s) you’re trying to meet up with. Then get everyone to locate the nearest town to where they spawned and find out its name. Every group of buildings, whether it’s a sprawling city or a remote village, will have a sign on the road running through it telling you what its name is.

Once you’ve figured out the name of the town, pull up a map of Chernarus in your Steam overlay’s web browser (try dayzdb.com/map) and use it to pinpoint your location. Since everyone will have spawned on the coast, you can now use the water to guide you towards your buddies. If you’ve spawned at, say, Kamyshovo on the south coast and your friend is in Nizhnoye on the east coast, run along the coastal road with the ocean to your right and you’ll bump into them. If your spawn has placed you miles apart, commit suicide by throwing yourself off a building and hope for a better one.

Navigation

Don’t heard too far north or west, though. Chernarus is big, but it does have boundaries. You’ll know when you’re heading outside of the map when the environment shifts to flat, grassy plain. Head back the way you came and look for signs of civilisation.

Because of the DayZ engine’s roots in hardcore military simulator Arma, there are a number of realistic ways to find your way around Chernarus. At night, as in real life, you can use the pole star to find out where north is. Look for the Big Dipper constellation (you might know it as the Plough) and draw an imaginary line from the bottom two stars up till you see one that’s brighter than the others. Head in that direction and you’ll be moving north. Another way to figure out which direction you’re going in is to look at where the clouds are moving, because, handily, the wind in Chernarus always blows east. Electricity pylons are also useful; they’ll always connect up with towns. Combine these methods with a map and town signs and you’ll never get lost again.

Of course, you won’t have to worry about any of this if you find a compass, which is a fairly common loot drop. To use it, drag it to your toolbar, equip it, then press space and enter first-person mode to see the dial. Be careful, though: if the compass is ‘ruined’ (hover over it in your inventory to find out) the reading will be inaccurate and you’ll get even more lost than before.

Thirst and hunger

You'll be eating a lot of canned food in the game, unless you forage for fresh stuff. Canina berries are red and will restore hunger and health, but in very small increments.

Keeping fed and hydrated is an important part of staying alive in DayZ. It’s easy to forget about it when you’re exploring, dodging other players, or hunting for weapons. When your hydration levels fall to zero, you’ll start losing blood and health and eventually die. Same goes for your hunger. As well as not drinking, eating dry food like cereal or rice will make you thirsty. The best way to keep hydrated is to find a water pump. Most towns have one, and you can middle-click on it repeatedly to fill your belly up with water. Not too much, though, otherwise you’ll puke and both your hunger and thirst will be reset. Alternatively, try canned drinks or water from fresh sources like streams and ponds.

As for food, you can eat anything from canned beans to powdered milk, but don’t consume any rotten fruit or you’ll contract food poisoning. If this happens, use charcoal tablets to settle your stomach. Berries are a new addition to the DayZ standalone, and can be foraged from bushes in the wilderness by middle-clicking next to them, although their nutritional value is low. Whatever you do, don’t eat the blue sambucus berries. They’re poisonous and will make you sick.

Bleeding

You’ll know you're injured when cartoon-like spurts of blood start to squirt from your body and the colour drains from the screen. Now the search is one for a health pack or bandage. Falling can also cause bleeding, as well as breaking your legs. You’ll need a morphine auto-injector to recover from this.

If a zombie hits you, or another player shoots or strikes you with a melee weapon, chances are you’ll start bleeding. A bandage is required to stop the flow, but if you don’t have any on you, remove your t-shirt, right click to tear it into rags, then use the rags to patch up the wound. If you’re close to death, the world around you will turn almost entirely monochrome and you’ll need to get a blood transfusion from another player.

To create a blood bag you’ll need the following: a blood bag kit, an IV start kit, a blood testing kit, and someone to extract blood from, which could either be a friend who’s volunteered to give up their blood, or someone you’ve kidnapped with handcuffs if you’re particularly cruel. The blood test kit is important, because if you accept a transfusion from someone of the wrong blood type, you’ll fall unconscious and eventually die. Use the testing kit beforehand to make sure you’re compatible. Drag the items together to create the blood bag, then the donor will have to ‘use’ it on the player to begin the procedure. Saline bags, which spawn as loot, also work, but they only restore half of what a blood bag does.

Avoiding danger

Look for clothes that are green, brown, or black and you’ll be almost impossible to spot while hidden in foliage from a distance. If you have a large backpack, put your axe inside rather than on your back to reduce the size of your silhouette.

Another benefit of DayZ’s background as a military sim is camouflage. Staying hidden is vital when moving around the map, as players who run around in the open will become targets for bandits, thieves, and other mischief makers. Stick to trees and bushes at all times, and make sure you’re wearing colours that will blend in. That fluorescent orange raincoat might have more pockets than your old t-shirt, but you might as well wear a target on your forehead.

Get to know the map as well. There are areas where encountering other players is almost certain, which dramatically increases your chances of being shot or robbed. Some danger areas new players should avoid include the city of Elektrozavodsk on the south coast, the north-west and north-east military airfields, and the Balota airstrip. The rarest loot spawns here – weapons, military gear, ammunition – so they naturally draw the attention of players looking to cause trouble. If someone sees you at one of these locations, they’ll probably shoot you on sight. But you will want to head here eventually once you’ve learned the ropes to get your hands on some quality gear of your own.

Other survivors

Mix your military gear with regular civilian clothes like plaid shirts and cowboy hats, and keep your face uncovered. Some will still kill on sight regardless, but you’re less likely to scare people if you look like a regular person.

One of the most tense and nerve-wracking moments in DayZ is running into another player – or worse, a group of them. While a frustrating amount of players will simply shoot you on sight, mostly out of fear that you’ll do the same to them, some won’t, and you might find people to team up with. If you see someone, lower your gun and press F1 to wave. Or try the famous ‘wiggle’ by pressing F2 to put your hands up and alternately tapping Q and E. Playing with a microphone is advised, as a human voice will often put people at ease. Hold the caps lock key to talk in-game, but bear in mind that your voice will be broadcast to anyone else who happens to be in the vicinity of your character.

The clothes you wear could also save your life. If you approach someone clad head to toe in green camo, wearing a gas mask, and cradling an M4, they’ll probably think you’re going to rob them. This is the unofficial uniform of the troublemaker.

Always be wary of other players. Someone might say they’re friendly, but they could be leading you into an ambush or waiting for the right moment to bludgeon you unconscious and steal your stuff.

The golden survival rule of DayZ is a simple one: trust no one.

DayZ is available for £20 on PC via Steam. The game is currently in the site's "early access" area, which means it is not yet finished and is being continually updated